Overconfidence

“ Your mistrust of us, and your reluctance to convey over to us any of your authority in the world, looks a little too much like the fear and dislike that doubt always feels in the presence of conviction, to be quite convincing. We believe in ourselves; and this fact, we think, is prophetic for the future. We have an indomitable feeling that we shall attain, or if not, that we shall pave the way for a generation that shall attain.
Meanwhile our constructive work is hampered by your distrust, while you blame us for our lack of accomplishment. ”

“ In a hundred ways timidity would have been criminal, but when one sees in what direction courage and hope have led the way, and to what effort they have prompted, a little over-confidence looks pardonable. ”

“ It is this lack of confidence in ourselves and the people, this timid waiting for events to control us when they should obey us, that makes men oscillate between hope and fear; now in the sunshine of the hill-tops, and now in the gloom and shadows of the valley. ”

“ the difficulty comes from our lack of confidence. ”

“ Yet each reverse of fate is telling on him heavily; the many disappointments to his wishes are sapping by degrees his confidence in fortune. His hope is dashed with fear; and now commences within him that struggle which is the most fearful man’s nature can endure. The fickleness of chance, the waywardness of fortune, fill his mind with doubts and hesitations. Sceptical on the sources of his great passion, he becomes a doubter on every subject; he has seen his confidence so often at fault that he trusts nothing, and at last the ruling feature of his character is suspicion. ”

“ Their blind confidence of success seduces even the most hardened sceptics, although this confidence is generally based on such uncertain, childish reasons that it is wonderful how people can put faith in them. ”

“ Therefore, as might be expected of those men who err in matters of the greatest concern, we transform our natural confidence into boldness, desperateness, recklessness, shamelessness, while our natural caution and self-respect we transform into cowardice and abjectness, full of fears and perturbations. ”

“ You say sometimes that your calling is not an easy one, but as you have challenged me, I'll ask you to notice that it would be easier to you if you had an opinion and a belief, Prince, that's my opinion and belief. How could anyone have confidence in you! No, it's not confidence that you inspire, but coldness and embarrassment; and if I put myself out to get closer to you, that kind of embarrassment and awkwardness would prevent me from doing so,—there's my answer for you. ”

“ There are abundant signs, by which to distinguish between those changes, which prove nothing worse than the fallibility of the individual mind, and manœuvres which destroy confidence, and entail merited dishonour. ”

“ This great quality—the opposite of distrust and timidity, the ally of courage, the adjunct of a buoyant temperament—is not fed upon airy nothings. It is, indeed, a true mental quality, an offshoot of our mental nature; yet, although not material, it is based upon certain forces of the physical constitution; it grows when these grow, and is nourished when they are nourished. People possessed of great confidence have it as a gift all through life, like a broad chest or a good digestion. ”

“ One sees useful careers cut ruthlessly short, generous qualities nullified by bad health or minute faults, promise unfulfilled, men and women bound in narrow, petty, uncongenial spheres, the whole matter in a sad disorder. One sees one man's influence spoilt by over-confidence, by too strong a sense of his own significance, and another man made ineffective by diffidence and self-distrust. ”

“ Then, if our confidence has been misplaced, it only furnishes another example of the fickleness of human integrity to which we have become accustomed, and the world undergoes no especial change in our eyes. ”

“ Forethought can be of vast practical use in cases where confidence is required. Many a young clergyman and lawyer has been literally frightened out of a career, and many an actor ruined for want of a very little knowledge, and in this I speak from personal experience. Let the aspirant who is to appear in public, or pass an examination, and is alarmed, base his forethought on such ideas as this, that he would not be afraid to repeat his speech to one person or two—why should he fear a hundred? ”

“ The grateful confidence with which they approach us, or even speak the name, makes one humble, filled with the fear that we will fail to justify the fullness of the confidence and hope that is offered. ”

“ You think that you cannot, only because you mean more by reposing confidence than others do. Your spirit is too noble, too ingenuous, too humble for concealment. You cannot help yourself, Hester: you have fully confided in me, and you will go on to do so. ”

“ Show strength and the world will help you; show weakness and the world will shun you. [Pg 92]
You are prejudiced when it comes to judging yourself. You compare your weakness with your friends' strength and this comparison is unfair; it makes you lose confidence.
Nothing hurts one worse than doubting one's own ability, assets, and character.
When you find yourself experiencing doubt, or inability, or hard luck, turn square around and say "Begone, doubt; henceforth I have belief." ”

“ So far from having aimed at things usually esteemed so high and difficult with a feeling of presumptuous confidence, he has, indeed, suffered most from that spirit of despondency, that despair of scepticism, against which, in the foregoing pages, he has appeared so anxious to caution others. ”

“ Afford it or not, we simply can not help ourselves, for our self-confidence is already shattered; our attention to the disorder is already beyond our control; each one of us is the doubter we would defend. ”

“ How many others who had the self-confidence when they started have had to acquire the self-sufficiency, the power of self-sustention? How many have failed to do that? Self-confidence, indeed, is the most perfect of traitors. But there is a reservoir in the Self....
Like every other prize, this one has its penalty. What will carry one to the top of a high rock will also, unimpeded, carry one over the rock’s edge. The balance in egoism always trembles; when it comes to rest, one dies. ”

“ From evil comes good. Distrust is a stage to confidence. How has it proved in our interview? But your voice is husky; I have let you talk too much. You hold your cure; I leave you. But stay—when I hear that health is yours, I will not, like some I know, vainly make boasts; but, giving glory where all glory is due, say, with the devout herb-doctor, Japus in Virgil, when, in the unseen but efficacious presence of Venus, he with simples healed the wound of Æneas ”

“ I more and more now mistrust my own judgment, and sometimes feel rather disgusted with—myself!’
There are thousands of people who lack the power of looking on both sides of a question; but among them all few are humble enough to acknowledge the fact!—still more, to distrust their own judgment. ”

“ For I have no one now to whom I can talk with anything like the same confidence. What, you say, cannot I easily converse with myself? Nay, will not some one rob me even of my thoughts, and besides compel me to think differently, and to admire what I prefer not to admire? ”

“ Ah, truth will out!”
“I told you, you must have confidence, unquestioning confidence, I meant confidence in the genuine medicine, and the genuine me.”
“But in your absence, buying vials purporting to be yours, it seems I cannot have unquestioning confidence.”
“Prove all the vials; trust those which are true.”
“But to doubt, to suspect, to prove—to have all this wearing work to be doing continually—how opposed to confidence. It is evil!”
“From evil comes good. Distrust is a stage to confidence. ”

“ I must e’en put a cheery face on it,
Suppress the whole, rub off the unfinished thoughts,
For fear she read them. O, ’tis pity indeed,
But confidence is the one and main thing now:
Who loses confidence, he loses all.
A demi-grain of cowardice in me
Avowed, were poison to the whole mankind;
When men are plentier, ’twill be time to try ”

“ How could I have confided in any of the men and women around me who seemed to me as if mad, whose conduct and opinions I despised with youthful severity as foolish and immoral? There was one human being in the world in whom I might perhaps have confided, that perhaps would have understood me. ”

“ Let your bearing be modestly confident, but most of all be modestly confident within. Over-confidence is bad, but to tolerate premonitions of failure is worse, for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing, while a rabbit-hearted coward invites disaster. ”

“ Bethink you therefore what sort of confidence you can have in your own simple powers when the whole resources of that people of which you are but a little part are adjudged poor, and how ashamed you should be to have spent so much time in pursuing something which cannot be attained, and which, if it could be, would prove after all but vanity itself. ”

“ Let us recollect that distrust and suspicion is on the increase for all those who wish to govern, direct, lead or conduct; that people are more and more inclined to think for themselves, to identify themselves with their own interest only, to lend a deaf ear to all except what is conducive of their own development. ”

“ It is true that my people sometimes distrust me, but that is because words have been put into my mouth which have turned out to be nothing but idle wind. Promises have been made to me in high places that have not been kept, and I have had to suffer for this in the loss of my people’s confidence. I have not spoken ill of others behind their backs and said fair words to their faces. I have been sincere with my own people when they have done wrong, as well as with my white brothers. ”

“ There is little of the look of a despairing swain on his face, as he concludes his soliloquy, and goes out to see that the outer door is secure, before retiring. A trifle pale, a trifle bored, a trifle cynical, and a trifle sleepy he looks. He also looks, for a man who has just been indulging in a fit of severe self-depreciation, exceedingly confident and full of faith in himself. And why not? Let that man despair who has lost confidence in his own ability to wrest favors from the fingers of Fate or Fortune. ”

“ What assurance have you that your confidence in REASON is not of the same nature as your confidence in US? When you relied on us, reason stepped in and gave us the lie,—had not reason been there you would have continued to rely on us. ”

“ Ah, sir, reflect how untimely this distrust in one like you. How weak you are; and weakness, is it not the time for confidence? Yes, when through weakness everything bids despair, then is the time to get strength by confidence."
Relenting in his air, the sick man cast upon him a long glance of beseeching, as if saying, "With confidence must come hope; and how can hope be?"
The herb-doctor took a sealed paper box from his surtout pocket, and holding it towards him, said solemnly, "Turn not away. This may be the last time of health's asking. Work upon yourself ”

“ Truth will not be comforted. Led by dear charity, lured by sweet hope, fond fancy essays this feat; but in vain; mere dreams and ideals, they explode in your hand, leaving naught but the scorching behind!”
“Why, why, why!” in amaze, at the burst: “bless me, if In vino veritas be a true saying, then, for all the fine confidence you professed with me, just now, distrust, deep distrust, underlies it; and ten thousand strong, like the Irish Rebellion, breaks out in you now. That wine, good wine, should do it! ”

“ But I see on the one hand these good people so over-confident, so tractable, with their eyes shut, ignorant of the facts and unwilling to recognise anything but what it is the pleasure of their Government that they shall know ”

“ In my calling, one becomes such a receptacle of human confidence,—one soaks up other people's lives till one becomes a great sponge, absorptive and absorbing for ever, as sponges should. Who notices when the useful thing gets too full? ”

“ Why, then, should we risk so many evils to bring that about which time and patience must, perforce, accomplish between them? Besides, the man whom ye support has shown that he is unworthy of confidence. ”

“ It, after all, is quite shrewd in judging whom it may trust and whom it is safe to keep at arm's-length. Knowing yourself and your own weaknesses as you do, could you honestly recommend yourself to the confidence of any one? With your character unchanged, what guarantee have you against the first temptation or gust of passion to which you are subjected? You had no lack of wounded pride and ambition when you started out, but you will surely admit that such feelings are of little value compared with Christian integrity and manly principle, which render anything dishonorable or base impossible. ”

“ But to have used deceit with her would have pricked against every feeling of his nature; and he saw how implicitly she relied upon his truth.
"I fear things are not very bright," he answered. "That is, so far as we can see at present. ”

“ It is astonishing what confidence such an attitude will give. Confidences—hesitating confidences, at all events—will take flight before the least trace of urgency. If you think you’ve got to be in a hurry to show them, they hide like shy children in the inmost recesses of your soul, and no amount of coaxing will bring them forth to the light of day. ”

“ Always trusting anew and always most bitterly deceived, how can it be otherwise than that distrust, hatred, jealousy, vindictiveness, would nestle firmly in the soul, destroying every trace of that human principle, which shows itself in benevolence and gentle confidence. ”

“ ANSWER. "I can neither come to see you nor receive your visit so long as my present inquietude continues. The confidence of which you speak no longer exists, and it will be easy for you to recover it. I see nothing more in your present anxiety than the desire of drawing from the confessions of others some advantage agreeable to your views; and my heart, so ready to pour its overflowings into another which opens itself to receive them, is shut against trick and cunning. ”